Two men have been jailed for a total of more than 11 years after HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) dismantled a tobacco factory that could have swamped the UK with millions of illicit cigarettes.

Mariwan Fatah from Enfield and Ali Jamal of Wood Green ran the London-based Kurdish organised crime group that smuggled the raw materials into the country and processed in Essex to be sold across the UK.

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A week later, on 3 September 2015, HMRC officers raided Oakleigh Nursery in Nazeing, Essex, and seized 323kg of hand-rolling tobacco with a range of machinery that was used to process the raw tobacco.